Making people feel ‘nothing’

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Really emotional digital stuff is tough to get right, but, maaaaan, it’s fun. To wit: introducing three things that make me think about how technology helps drive emotion. What do you do when pushing pixels – creating “nothing” – needs to have an emotional effect? How do we make people feel happy / worried / delighted / energetic / included / safe? More to the point, how do I push myself to feel confident committing a client’s $500,000 to creating an interactive experience instead of the relative simplicity of shooting another linear TVC?

WorldUnderWater

Wonderfully fascinating. Beautifully terrifying. And, actually, relatively technically simple. There’s tons of emotion in taking something people know – something real – and helping them see it differently. Streetview is a phenomenal source of content that we can overlay with all kinds of nonsense. Drown your office. Grow a jungle. Or pop in to work on acid.

AboveMarine

Gorgeous, magical, clumsy, intentional… and really quite emotional. The wonderful works of Adam Ben-Dror do all kinds of things – mostly, they ask us questions about animals and empathy; what’s living and what isn’t. Next time you’re looking to get someone’s attention, sure, do the shouty thing – then ask: how can we use technology to help people interact their way into an emotional experience they won’t easily forget?

VR = Volvo Reality

Introducing people to the immersive Volvo XC90 driving experience when there are none in the country is kinda tricky. RGA pulled it off, creating a PR coup in the process. The thing to note here is a deliberate effort to do this job really, really well – creating an experience that never existed. It’s not too much of a stretch from our existing behaviour of shooting a piece of TV designed to immerse people in a story. Now think about changing your behaviour: What would you do with your next half-mill budget if you knew it wasn’t going to run on TV? What would you build with that half a mill if the job was to “get famous” – and not just make a film?